96 LECTURES 



mining the formation of new protoplasm from such mat- 

 ters as ammonium carbonates, oxalates and tartrates, 

 alkaline and earthy phosphates, and water, without the 

 aid of light. That is the expectation to which analogical 

 reasoning leads me; but I beg you once more to recollect 

 that I have no right to call my opinion anything but an 

 act of philosophical faith." * * * 



"So much for the history of the progress of Redi's great 

 doctrine of biogenesis, which appears to me, with the 

 limitations I have expressed, 10 be victorious along the 

 whole line at the present day." 



As I have said, these convictions of Professor Huxley's 

 were expressed by him nearly a quarter of a century ago, 

 and in the interim between the time of their expression 

 and the present hour the keenest methods of experimen- 

 tation in such fields have been steadily kept up in many 

 laboratories, by the most competent observers, and the 

 result has been that an ever-increasing belief in the idea 

 that abiogenesis can take place; that is, in certain low 

 and simple organisms we may have living matter arise 

 from non-living matter, and it was what took place at 

 the dawn of life upon earth. This is my belief, my con- 

 viction; and its complete demonstration when accom- 

 plished will be far from a matter of surprise to me. 

 During the last century we have wrested so many of 

 Nature's secrets from her that I feel that the earnest 

 truth-seekers In bijlogy will by their persistent efforts in 

 such directions compel her to surrender this one likewise, 

 perhaps the most or one of the most important ones she 

 still withholds from humanity. 



Biological advance, in all its departments, for the last 

 half century, has, as we are all well aware, most power- 

 fully influenced the entire trend of human thought, and 

 wherever its modern doctrines have come in contact with 

 modern society, capable, in whole or in part of logical 

 reasoning, they hnve had the effects of completely revolu- 

 tionizing many of its time-honored ideas, and much of its 

 time-honored philosophy. To those who have'kept pace 

 with scientific advance during rather more than the 

 latter half of the time of which I speak, it is unnecessary 

 to recall the fact that that revolution came upon the world 

 of thought in no very gentle manner, for the roar of its 

 trained artillery and the rattle of iis musketry of millions 

 of facts thoroughly aroused every mind in the entire 

 army of the world's thinkers. And controversies of the 

 most seething nature characterized the war that fol- 

 lowed, and may hardly yet be said to have terminated, 



